Game Recap: Lions stay undefeated following 17-12 win in Iowa City

Two touchdown drives, a couple of turnovers and another solid defensive performance were enough to lift visiting Penn State to a 17-12 victory over Iowa on Saturday night.

The Nittany Lions had trouble moving the ball consistently against an Iowa defense that was only allowing 8.8 points per game to rank fourth in the Football Bowl Subdivision. But they scored touchdowns on possessions of 85 and 35 yards, and they got a field goal on a drive on which an apparent touchdown catch by Pat Freiermuth was inexplicably overturned on replay.

“I was proud of how our coaches and players managed the game,” coach James Franklin said. “We didn’t turn the ball over, we protected the football. We scratched and clawed for just enough points, whether it was touchdowns, whether it was field goals or whether we were punting. We understood that in that type of field-position game, it’s OK to punt.”

The Lions also got another impressive defensive performance, holding Iowa without a touchdown until late in the fourth quarter.

The victory was Penn State’s sixth in a row over the Hawkeyes and its third in a row at Kinnick Stadium. It lifted the Nittany Lions to 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Big Ten heading into a showdown against Michigan this coming Saturday.

Here’s a look at the good and the bad:

THE GOOD

• On a night when the offense was struggling to generate yards and points, the defense was up to the challenge of protecting a narrow lead. The Lions, who went into the game ranked second in the FBS in scoring defense at 7.4 points per game, held Iowa to 356 total yards, including just 70 rushing yards. Senior defensive tackle Robert Windsor was especially dominant in the middle, finishing with six stops, including 2.5 tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks.

• When the Lions needed a first down to close out the game, they got it, thanks to the tough running of Noah Cain. Following a block from guard Steven Gonzalez, Cain gained 5 yards on third-and-2 to give Penn State a first down that allowed it to run out the clock.

Cain finished with 102 yards on 22 carries, and he scored the fourth-quarter touchdown that gave the Lions their biggest lead of the evening, 17-6.

“Noah is a downhill guy,” Franklin said. “Very little indecision, he sticks his foot in the ground and gets downhill. He’s always falling forward. We went into this knowing he was going to be our four-minute back, and he continues to do great things. Just I’m really proud of him, and I’m proud of our O-line. We didn't play perfect, but we're getting better.”

• The Lions’ second-quarter touchdown drive was a thing of beauty. After doing nothing on offense to that point in the game, they ran 15 plays, converting all four of their third-down attempts including a third-and-7 play on which K.J. Hamler scored a 22-yard touchdown.

• The Lions won the turnover battle. They collected two from Iowa, including a fumble recovery that set up Jake Pinegar’s 33-yard field goal. And they didn’t have any of their own.

• Blake Gillikin had a fantastic game on a night when every inch of field position mattered. The senior punter pinned Iowa inside its 20-yard line five times, with one of those punts covering 62 yards. Said Franklin, “Blake did a great job of pinning them deep a bunch of times, which was huge.”

THE BAD

• Were the replay officials watching Pac-12 After Dark? The decision to overturn Pat Freiermuth’s apparent touchdown in the third quarter was a genuinely mystifying moment. Multiple replays appeared to show the ball cross the goal line before Freiermuth’s knee touched the turf. They did not show conclusively that the ball didn’t cross, meaning the call on the field – a touchdown – presumably should have stood.

Also, Penn State was penalized eight times in the game for 80 yards, while Iowa was flagged once for 5 yards. Iowa and Penn State were both among the least penalized teams in the Big Ten going into the game, with the Hawkeyes averaging only 32.8 penalty yards per game though their first five games and Penn State averaging 45. Coaches tend to be circumspect when talking about officiating, and Franklin adhered to that trend, choosing his words carefully after the game.

“The thing that was really interesting,” he said, is that Penn State “is one of the least penalized teams in the country. And we come in here tonight and it didn’t necessarily play out that way. I’ll leave it at that.”

• Penn State was only penalized once in the first half, but it was costly. The defensive holding call on John Reid on Iowa’s final possession negated a second-down sack that would have put the Hawkeyes in third-and-long. A defensive stop would likely have forced the Hawkeyes to punt from their own end zone, giving the Lions an excellent scoring opportunity just before halftime. Instead, Iowa drove to the Penn State 3-yard line and got a field goal.

LOOKING AHEAD

Next up: a White Out showdown against Michigan. With Ohio State under new management, the Wolverines went into the season as a trendy pick to win the Big Ten’s East Division. But so far, the Buckeyes have looked invincible, while the Wolverines have courted disaster with some regularity. First came an overtime scare vs. Army, then a 35-14 loss to Wisconsin. Yesterday’s 42-25 victory over Illinois lifted Jim Harbaugh’s team to 5-1 overall and 3-1 in the Big Ten, but it was not without drama, as the Illini rallied back from a 28-0 deficit and trailed by only a field goal early in the fourth quarter. Hassan Haskins rushed for 125 yards, and Zach Charbonnet gained 116, as Michigan eventually pulled away, but the Wolverines also fumbled twice, bringing their season total to nine.

Despite its occasional struggles, Michigan controls its destiny in the East Division. If they win out, the Wolverines will find themselves in Indianapolis in December, a place they’ve never been under Harbaugh. They’ll have to beat Penn State on Saturday, and they’ll need a win over Ohio State in the Big Game. If they can do that without stumbling anywhere else, they might get another shot at the Badgers.

Of course, the Nittany Lions control of their destiny, too, and they are eager to begin preparing for the next step.

“We’ll enjoy this for a couple of hours,” Franklin said afterward. “We won’t get back until late, late, late, but then we’ll move on. We’ll move on to our next opponent. We will get a few hours to enjoy it. I’m looking forward to getting on the plane. I don’t know if you guys have ever seen the moving ‘Soul Plane.’ We’ll be partying like ‘Soul Plane’ the whole way back to State College, then we’ll hit the ground and get back to work.”